“I don’t care what it takes. I want to play Teitoku no Ketsudan from Koei. The first one,” the man said, as if confessing his darkest desires. “I’m not talking about the console port, either. The PC-8801 one. First printing.” With that, he fell silent. Now I knew why that envelope was so thick. I had heard stories about that one.

The Phantom of Akihabara: GAME OVER is a serial novel written by Yoshitaka Ohsawa and published in 2002-04 over eight issues of YuGe, a Japanese magazine devoted to games old and new (now called GameSide). Illustrations were provided by Aki Shimizu, a manga artist who I don’t think has done anything that’s attracted a Stateside fanbase yet but is still a pretty talented dude.

This is almost certainly the only apocalyptic SF novel themed around used video games that has ever been written, and its mere existence shocks and enthralls me, and so I’m translatin’ it, starting with this first installment. I’ve included a decent amount of links and footnotes so you’ll be able to understand all the Japan- (and Akihabara-) centric references. If something still seems obtuse to you, please let me know.